Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Identification of the ‘Man Who Never Was’As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they sought to dupe the Germans into thinking that the attack would be carried out elsewhere. As part of a plot named ‘Operation Mincemeat’, a body carrying fake secret documents suggesting that the invasion would be staged in Greece was dumped into the sea to be discovered by the Axis forces. The true identity of the body has, however, been a source of confusion ever since. Professor Denis Smyth from Toronto University, whose book Operation Mincemeat: Death, Deception and the Mediterranean D-Day is due to be published later this year, claims to have solved the mystery. Read the article published on the website of The Telegraph.

Soldiers re-create historic march from the Scottish borders to LondonOne hundred soldiers from Number Seven Company, Coldstream Guards, embarked on a march, today, from Coldstream to London to commemorate General George Monck’s march to parliament along the same route 350 years ago during the English Civil War. Heraldscotland reports.In The Honour of General Monck Mark Stoyle uncovers the juvenile delinquency of the man who saved the Stuart monarchy and brought back Charles II.

Leo Tolstoy: the forgotten genius?With the upcoming release of The Last Station, a new drama about Leo Tolstoy’s final days, to mark the centenary of the author’s death, Luke Harding comments in The Guardianon the memory of Leo Tolstoy in Russia.